


With Faith

by PastelClark



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Post-Canon, Shay-centric, bringing you that soft Hunay Fluff and Shay & Rax sibling bonding time since 2k17, older sister Shay & younger brother Rax, this is honestly the Softest thing I've ever written I am Disgusted with myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 08:37:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11642880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PastelClark/pseuds/PastelClark
Summary: In the wake of the Balmera's liberation from the rule of the Galra Empire, Shay finds herself rather stuck on two things— The question of what role she is meant to play in the bigger picture in the fight against Zarkon, and exactly what it is Hunk means to her.(Or, five times Hunk makes, and fulfills, a promise to return to Shay's Balmera over the course of the war, and one time he doesn't need to.)





	With Faith

**Author's Note:**

  * For [d0g-bless (d0gbless)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/d0gbless/gifts).



> Written for d0g-bless for the [VLD Rarepair Exchange](https://twitter.com/vld_rarepairs) over on twitter. I kind of heard the words "Hunk/Shay can be super cute and pure" and my brain just... sort of wouldn't shut up after that, and so somehow this morphed into one part Hunk/Shay and one part Shay character study, sorry! Hope you like it!

**1.**

 

It’s hard to accept, when it’s all over.

 

Not so much in a way as if Shay _doesn’t_ want to accept it, but in the fact that it in many ways almost feels _not real_ , an impossible pipe dream whispered among mutinous children as a bedtime story before their spirits are broken in the name of survival. A future that seemed so outrageous and ridiculous that it ceased to be even a fantasy. Too hard to even conceptualize, let alone imagine.

 

_Freedom._

 

The ability to go wherever you want and do whatever you want— Within reason, of course, but the whole point being that there are no longer masters to control you, to dictate when you eat, when you sleep, when you die.

 

It is something Shay knows nothing of, born into a world ruled by the Galra, as her mother before her was, and _her_ mother before her. Something that fell to ash in the minds and hearts of the Balmera’s young over centuries, just the same as did the recounted histories of Voltron, and the one of their own kind who flew one of its lions, fade only to fable.

 

A child’s tale— _The_ child’s tale, both Voltron and its promised liberation.

 

And yet, it is the right of every creature in this universe, this _freedom_ , supposedly.

 

At least, it is so, according to him. Hunk.

 

(The human who comes back and keeps coming back. Who promises things he should not be able to promise and follows through.)

 

The paladin of Voltron, the freedom fighter.

 

She does not know what to make of him, at first, in more ways than one. Her entire life has been the divisions of _us, and them_. Balmerans and Galra, the story of the conquered and their conquerors, as it was, as it has always been. He is unexplainable, the being that is neither like her, nor like them, and that falls from the sky on a rush of smoke and hopeful requests.

 

And she helps him, despite the crawling fears of the Balmera’s memories running on centuries of suffering and her brother’s words of angered terror digging under her skin like a vice. For the first time in her life she stares down at something that is neither family nor foe, something new and _good_ and unafraid, and she wants to be a part of it. Even when the Galra take her, even when Hunk swears to come back and she weighs up the overwhelmingly likely realities that stand against that well-meant promise, she doesn’t care, because for one small moment, she has been a piece of something _bigger_. She has helped someone who could in turn help others, others like her and her family, and it is _worth it_ , to know her life has ended up meaning something more than just another nameless worker in a Galra computer system and the whispered hopes of the cobbled-together remnants of family.

 

And despite everything, Hunk comes back anyways, and suddenly her life does not look short after all.

 

He comes back, with his team of the others like him and the Alteans, yet more remnants of those long-abandoned tales, and Shay’s planet gets a second chance to begin again, as does she.

 

Once the fight for the Balmera is finally over, after Shay watches the first unfiltered, unmarred sunrise of her life, her _new_ life, Hunk leaves again— Too soon, far too soon. It’s not easy, to watch him go. Not when he has helped her to gain _everything_ , all the things she barely dreamed of and more, and she still feels as if she barely knows anything about him, beyond the fact that he is kind of soul and good of heart.

 

But he is needed elsewhere, to help others, and her place is here, with her family as they rebuild their home from the rubble of the Galra’s defeat. Hunk is strange, and he is fascinating, but they both have very different obligations to attend to that dictate separate paths. That is just how it is.

 

She doesn’t expect any promises this time. He has done his duty as a paladin, more than repaid any imagined debt he might have incurred from her assistance retrieving a crystal the first time he came to the Balmera, and there is no prudent reason why he should need or want to return.

 

And yet he does, pressing a communicator into her hand that he explains, almost with disappointment in his voice, is built only for emergency signals, not messaging or video feeds, mumbling casually about finding a way to build a proper communication system that might work with the remnants of Galra technology on her planet, or run on its own. He wants to keep speaking to her, even if he leaves, and he wants that small excuse to come back, Shay realizes with something like relief as she accepts the offered gift, a mark of protection and another promise unto itself, and nods her head and offers to look for spare parts like he described among the half-ruined, abandoned Galran stations littering her planet.

 

Hunk grins and shuffles his feet and ducks his head, and Shay lets herself fully believe _this_ promise, this time.

 

**2.**

 

The second time Hunk comes back is not long after that at all— Long enough for Shay’s people to start to come to grips with their newfound freedom, as best they can anyways, and begin working to figure out what life on the Balmera without Galra control means for them, but not so long that Shay has broken the habit of looking to the sky every time she hears a new noise on the wind. Hoping against hope it might be the castle or Hunk’s lion, despite knowing there is no rational reason for them to be here of all places.

 

Her brother picks up a habit of scoffing every time she does so, loudly and pointedly enough that she knows he is doing it on purpose, though it doesn’t faze Shay much. He still helped the paladins in the end, after all, even if it was likely largely because she was with them, and she doubts at this point he has any regrets about that change of heart.

 

He’ll never admit it aloud, but it’s spoken in the quiet, deferential complacency he offers in the face of her suggestions for their family, for their people. In the way he looks to the sky as well even after his noises of complaint have been voiced, watching the horizon for metallic glimmers of yellow or white.

 

She was right, after all, about the paladins, and he is sorry for having doubted her.

 

(And she accepts it, of course, because he is her little brother, and she knows he only did what he did, right or wrong, to try and protect her.)

 

When Hunk returns, she hears the deep whistle of the lion’s engines long before she sees it, the sound startling and distinct against the now serene stillness of the Balmera’s surface, devoid of the roar of Galra ships and machinery once more. Rax grumbles and glares at the slowly growing form of the yellow lion as it appears in the sky, but he takes the Galra machinery scraps she is carrying without comment, mumbling about handling her chores for the afternoon, and she gives him a small, grateful smile that he studiously ignores, before going to wait for Hunk to land.

 

Hunk grins, wide and genuine, when the yellow lion’s mouth opens after it lands, and he spots her standing on the ground in front of him. He calls her name in a way no one else has spoken it before—bright and unassuming and still ever so slightly unsure, because he is the first person she has trusted in her life outside of family and he _knows_ that—and she pretends it does not make her feel as inexplicably happy as she does to hear it.

 

It is so different, the way he says her name, when she is still so used to only hearing it from the mouths of her fellow Balmerans primarily as an act of rebellion against the numbers the Galra assigned to them, and as a reassurance of her existence as an individual, but it is not bad. It might even be good.

 

“You’re back sooner than I thought you might be.” She says to him softly once he is departed from his lion, the quiet elation of _you came back, you came back_ clashing with the breathless worry that others are out there suffering, right now, because Hunk is here to see _her_ , someone inconsequential in the larger story, rather than helping them.

 

“Allura is still recovering from healing the Balmera—and before you ask, she’s fine, she’s just tired—so we’re not doing too much Zarkon-fighting right now.” Hunk tells her, shrugging. “Long story short, there was an incident involving a giant pile of stew, chess, a princess turned into a dragon, and a guy Coran owed a debt to that had ten thousand years interest on it, and everyone agreed afterward we needed a couple days off.”

 

Shay blinks, putting aside her questions of that tale for later, because she doubts she will ever fully understand the lives of the paladins, so outrageous and wild compared to her own, and instead focuses on the warm feeling she has at Hunk’s final words. “And so you chose to come here?”

 

“Well, yeah.” He pulls her up the ramp into his lion’s mouth excitedly, leaving burning trails in his light touch on her wrist, ready to let go at a second’s discomfort on her part, and gestures to crates stacked neatly within the great beast’s maw. “I think I found the stuff around the castle to build a proper communications hub! Then we can talk whenever we want!” There’s a moment of silence as Shay absorbs the fact that he _really meant it,_ he really wants to stay in contact with her, and then Hunk’s feather-light grasp on her wrist is gone, hand rubbing at the back of his neck and looking sheepish. “I mean— Unless you don’t want to— Sorry, I just kind of assumed…”

 

“Hunk.” She says firmly, cutting him off, because while she may still be learning Hunk, she knows he is enthusiastic in the face of new people to befriend, but painfully hesitant when convinced he has overstepped his bounds. Luckily for the both of them, she is the type of person who does not waver when she is confident in what she wants, and she knows just enough to be sure, here. “I would very much like to be able to talk to you on a regular basis, and am most honored you chose to use your time off to come visit me.”

 

Hunk smiles, crooked and bright, and Shay firmly tells her fluttering heart now is not the time.

 

“…Okay then.”

 

Later, much later, once the twin suns of the Balmera have begun to set once more and her people have returned to their homes to rest, Hunk leaves again, communication hub constructed and lion whirring in the sky, stirring up stray pebbles with its jets as it departs.

 

“I’ll come back again soon.” He tells her before he leaves, and Shay ignores the grumbles of Rax, quick to find her again once it gets dark, behind her shoulder as they both watch Hunk go.

 

“And I suppose you will _wait_ for that one.” Rax mumbles with half-hearted, unmeant disdain, and Shay smiles patiently at her brother.

 

“Yes. But is it really waiting, if I’m meant to be here anyways?” She asks, and tries not to be too pleased when Rax’s jaw clicks shut, a silent concession to her words.

 

Shay closes her eyes and breaths in, savoring the fresh air on the Balmera’s surface. She will wait, because she has faith Hunk will return, but she will not be idle. The Balmera needs her, as it always has, and that, too, is good.

 

**3.**

After that, conversing with Hunk on the small, glitchy screens he constructed for them becomes a regular occurrence— One Shay, and her family, when she invites them to partake in the conversation, looks forward to every time. It is… nice, to have someone to chat with outside of the world of the Balmera, where they are free at last but still so isolated while they figure out what role they want to play in the universe again. And of all people, she is glad it is Hunk she gets to see on the other side of that screen, for she does not think she would have anyone else, even if there were more options outside of the limited number of non-Balmerans she knows in any vague sense of the word.

 

She gets used to waiting for his calls, as best on a schedule as he can manage but often still all over the place thanks to his duties as a paladin, rather than the hum of Yellow’s engines. There is a sense of ease in knowing she will no longer have little clue as to Hunk’s next return, now that they have established a way of sustained communication, and she enjoys the chance to learn Hunk better outside of what she knows and what she infers, which still feels like not even half enough as she ought to.

 

Hunk tells her the exciting, and occasionally more than mildly terrifying, stories of his adventures with the other paladins like clockwork, making a point to emphasis the interesting parts and downplay the scary pieces to give her the best, least worrying picture he can, and she gets used to subtly pressing for details in a way that encourages him to share his true feelings on the matter, even if they are fear or nervousness, if he is so willing. Shay takes it as a compliment when, over time, he begins to share more and more of his worries with her rather than just his joys. It is a mark of trust, to share such thoughts with her, and she keeps it close in her thoughts and dear in her heart throughout every tale Hunk recounts, every time he falters and she does her best to offer encouragement and advice.

 

She doubts that she is very useful, really, with giving any helpful commentary on the complexities of Hunk’s situation, when she is so far removed from his world, but he seems to appreciate it nonetheless, and it is nice to feel… important, valued. It’s a form of reassurance that every sleepless night of work on the Balmera and every long thought she gives to the course of Voltron in their universe has a _purpose_.

 

In return, she tells him of the Balmera. Of the continued growth of crystals both on the surface and below the ground as her home continues to heal, and of the work of her people in reconstructing their lives— Their struggles and discussions on what to do with the remains of the Galra bases, what to scavenge and recycle, what to leave, what to destroy as best they can.

 

It’s complicated, she explains to Hunk when he asks about potential plans to reuse Galra technology. There’s a sentiment in some places, particularly amongst the younger and angrier, like her brother, that everything Galra should be burned to the ground until there is nothing but ash, no traces of the Galra stain on their planet left. Others feel it’s worth taking as much as they can from the half-destroyed Galra bases, and making it into their own, for after centuries of being denied access to these technologies and the chance to choose to use them or not, surely they have earned this much.

 

Most just hover somewhere in the middle, discontented at the idea of Galra military equipment and bases remaining on their planet, but aware there are probably useful materials left over for them to salvage as they try to adjust collectively to a life of choices, a life where they may look to contact travelers and make allies, just as they did with Voltron.

 

Shay finds herself the very definition of unsure and conflicted, wavering between the precipices of destruction and rebirth, and she admits as much when Hunk asks. There is nothing she hates in her heart so much as the Empire and what it has done to both her people and countless others, and she understands the desire to wipe away any trace of them from her home. But… On the other end of things, the Galra, for all their cruelty and disgusting disregard for other forms of life, live in the heights of technological and mechanical splendor, and there is wealth of abandoned remnants left over to be repurposed or sold to travelers, if so chosen. For Shay and her people, who have been left with very little outside of their slowly re-healing planet after centuries of its creeping death, and their own faith and trust in one another, the benefits of reclaiming the former blights on their planet, and turning them into their own, may outweigh the costs.

 

There is a war to fight, after all. And while Shay knows her place is here, she wants to continue to be a part of the bigger picture as long as she is capable of doing so, of contributing something useful, and she knows many of her people feel the same in the face of Voltron’s triumph.

 

But they cannot do that as effectively as possible if they are cut off from the universe, unable to communicate or travel, and for that they must, reluctantly, for now look to the remains of the Galra technology on their planet.

 

Perhaps, in another life, they could find a way around it, could trust in Voltron to put them in contact with allies who could help supply them with ships and communication devices. Could wait for their own people to work and invent their own ways of doing these things, perhaps utilizing the power of their Balmera.

 

That is not, however, the life they are living. Right now, time is of the essence. They do not have months and years to perfect themselves and choose the most straight and narrow path. Not if they want to be a part of the fight against Zarkon.

 

…And they do. That, at least, is something they can all agree on.

 

After a while, Hunk’s calls fall to stuttering periods of silence, eventually petering out altogether, leaving Shay wondering and undeniably forlorn, and her brother angry as always on her behalf. She gets about as far as cycling between worrying that Hunk’s paladin duties have suddenly gotten infinitely more complicated, or that he may not want to speak to her anymore, before the Castle of Lions shows up on the Balmera’s doorstep, sans Hunk or any of the other paladins, and asks for a crystal of enormous proportions.

 

(The former of Shay’s assessments about the situation, then, she guesses. The paladins have somehow found themselves yet even bigger battles to fight, even this quickly into this messy, spiraling thing they call the long-awaited war against Zarkon.)

 

When the beast the Balmera had trapped within its confines breaks free, in the aftermath of retrieving Allura’s requested crystal, Shay is not afraid. She is frustrated that she cannot do more to help, forced to take shelter within the Balmera’s caves that once imprisoned her from the sun, pacing and brushing up against the walls and feeling so _useless_ , and worried for the princess on the surface, but she is _not_ afraid.

 

She trusts in Hunk, to come when Allura calls him to help Shay and her people once more. She trusts him to come back.

 

And he does.

 

Victorious and trembling and _everything_ , as Voltron tears apart the Galra’s largest curse on the Balmera, he does.

 

The paladins demonstrate themselves to still be in quite the hurry afterwards, disbanding Voltron and preparing to depart yet again almost instantaneously once the robeast is defeated, but they still allow Hunk a moment, and Shay shivers with quietly suppressed relief and joy when Hunk’s face brightens the moment he emerges from his lion and sees her exiting the caves, his own demeanor softening in a reflection of how she feels herself at the sight of him. He sweeps her up in a hug without hesitation as soon as he’s close enough, tucking his chin against her neck, and she reciprocates slowly, but gladly.

 

“I’m so glad you’re alright.” He says lowly, voice quivering with so many unspoken things. “I was so scared.”

 

“I wasn’t.” She tells him, easy and gentle and all the things she knows he needs to hear right now. “I knew you’d come back in time. You always do.”

 

He steps back, unthinkingly clasping her hands and twining their fingers together in front of them in what must be a human gesture of significance. It is lost on her, but it is not an unpleasant feeling, and she squeezes his hands gently, noting the pleased flush that scrawls across his face. “We’re going to defeat Zarkon. We have a plan, we’re going to end this properly, once and for all.”

 

Shay’s skin itches at the thought, an idea even more impossible than freedom had been, but the Balmera help her if she doesn’t _want_ it, a chance for it all to stop, for everyone to begin once more. “I believe you. If anyone can do it, it is you and your team.”

 

Hunk lights up, grin scrawling back across his face even as his teammates call for him, and he squeezes her hand back slowly, a silent goodbye. “I’ll be around with the good news before you know it. Promise. It’s really happening, Shay.”

 

**4.**

 

It does.

 

And yet, it doesn’t.

 

Taking down the Empire is more complicated than just taking out Zarkon and hoping everything will simply disintegrate from there, and there is a cost for everything in battles such as these.

 

An Emperor traded out for a prince, a consequential but not all-destroying blow made to the Empire, paid in the price of one black paladin.

 

Shay doesn’t hear of it when it happens, her last contact with Hunk a short transmission from him the evening before the mission to take down Zarkon, and then radio silence. It’s expected, at first, victory or no victory, because she has no doubt that a fight with Zarkon and its aftermath will be long and arduous, especially if there are injuries to heal or Galra generals to deal with afterwards, but when the hours run into days without so much as a single word, the fear, deep and clawing underneath her skin, begins to set in.

 

_What if they lost?_

 

What if they died out there, crushed under the weight of Zarkon’s might, and Shay didn’t even know, a million miles away on a planet cut off from the universe?

 

Her family tries to distract her, asking her for help with work and avoiding the nagging terror in the backs of all their minds as they talk, and her brother mutters under his breath about how if Hunk died out there, Rax is going to kill him on Shay’s behalf for worrying her.

 

(Shay decides pointing out the circularity of that logic is a rather useless endeavor. The sentiment is clear, and appreciated, if nothing else.)

 

The even greater worry, that if Voltron was defeated the Galra may come for them again, remains unspoken. Their people were enslaved against their will once already. They will not go down so easily a second time without a fight.

 

Still, when the rumble of Yellow’s engine descending to the Balmera is finally heard, after long days of waiting for something, _anything_ , Rax takes Shay’s basket from her without a word, nodding to her, and she _runs_ , chasing the gaps between the crystals and rock formations on the Balmera’s surface to where she sees the yellow lion land. She skids to a halt before the beast’s maw just as it begins to open, and then Hunk is down the ramp with the kind of speed she remembers from the fight for her planet, half flying and half falling to meet her in the middle with ungainly, but desperately relieved, movements. He collapses against her chest, shoulders shuddering and breath trembling, the glimpses of his face she catches grief-stricken and blotchy, and she flounders, looking to offer comfort but not knowing quite how.

 

“We lost Shiro.” Hunk says, and the world rewrites itself.

 

Later, after she coaxes him away from his lion to sit in her family’s new home, precariously constructed out of a rock protrusion on the Balmera’s surface that it had gladly shaped as necessary for them, and plied him with some of her grandmother’s stew, because food is warm and safe and a known comfort she can provide to Hunk, he explains.

 

“We don’t— He’s not _dead_. We just…” He sighs. “He disappeared after the fight from the black lion, we have no idea what happened to him. We’ve searched everywhere around the battle site but… nothing.”

 

“...I am sorry, Hunk.”

 

“No one’s really handling it well.” Hunk admits with a shaky laugh, voice croaky and soft. “Keith’s… a mess, Pidge won’t talk at _all_ , Allura just keeps shoving everything down to keep things afloat and it’s… It’s bad. I needed to get away, just for a little bit. I felt like I couldn’t breathe in the castle one second longer, with all that weighing on us every moment and every hour.”

 

 _And so you came here, of all places_ , Shay’s heart whispers, and she tells it to be silent. This is not about her.

 

“…And Zarkon? Shay says, because maybe it’s callous to think about, with a paladin, Hunk’s friend, someone who helped defend her own planet, gone so suddenly, but she _needs_ to know.

 

“Not dead.” Hunk admits, and she closes her eyes. “Physically, at least. But whatever happened to him at the end of that fight… The Empire’s called in his son, apparently, and Zarkon’s been locked away somewhere, probably plugged up with tubes just to keep him breathing. It’s done, Shay. The Empire may not be gone, but Zarkon himself will never order another innocent world torn apart again.”

 

Shay gasps out, suddenly feeling as if she can breathe again, and her hand finds his uncertainly where he sits next to her, mimicking his earlier gesture from his last visit and pressing their palms together, feeling the reassuring thrum of his pulse against her skin. “ _Thank you._ ”

 

Hunk chuckles morosely. “Don’t thank me yet. We can’t form Voltron anymore, and the Galra are less than defeated. That battle may have been our last big blow to the Empire for a long while.”

 

She deflates, nodding her head and leaning her shoulder against his. “And you have a teammate whom you are desperately worried for missing.” Hunk twitches, the barest of unwanted acknowledgements at her statement, and she sighs, wishing that just for once life would be easy, yet unwilling to turn her back in the face of a chance to continue to matter in this fight. “How can I help?”

 

“Just… Just talk, if you can. Please.” Hunk says, quiet and unsure, and so, _so_ embroiled in the whispers of fear just underneath that steel armor. “I need to not think about anything involving Voltron, or Shiro, or the Galra, or… any of it, for a while.”

 

So she does. She tells him of the Balmera, of the trembling hum of its song beneath its surface that every one of her people can hear, that they have known all their lives, reverberating through their bones and deep within their hearts. She tells him of the stories her ancestors passed down and down, all the way to her grandmother and her parents and then her, about Voltron, about freedom, about hope. Of the dances they used to hold in larger crevices amongst the tunnels, where the sentries could not find them, and they could be a people with choices all their own even for a short while. Of her childhood, spent with Rax playing amongst the mazes of tunnels down where daylight does not even hope to fall, yet warmth can still be found in the Balmera’s loving glow.

 

She tells him of it all, until his weight drifts against her side and his head lulls in sleep. When her family comes home, she shushes them gently, gesturing to Hunk next to her, and Rax, despite his glaring, helps her shift Hunk’s sleeping form into a more comfortable position to rest for the night.

 

The next morning, Hunk leaves again, as always.

 

“Thank you.” He tells her quietly as his lion waits, and she shrugs, looking to his hands where they hold his helmet and wondering what it would be like to have them intertwined with her own once more. She has gotten far too used to the strange human sensation after only two occasions, wanting to experience it again and again whenever she so pleases.

 

“Just be careful, stay alive.” She says. “That is all I would ask of you.”

 

Hunk’s mouth quirks slightly, and he nods. “That’s fair.” There’s a pause, and then he sighs, leaning forward and resting his forehead against her shoulder, a grounding weight without being pressing. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I may not be able to come back for a… a long while.”

 

“I know.”

 

“But I _will_ come back.” He straightens up, looking into her eyes, one part soldier, one part child, young and vulnerable. “So long as you want me to, I will come back.”

 

Shay smiles, soft and fond, and touches his wrist where it rests against his helmet in the closest substitute she will allow herself to holding his hand, chasing the tail of his pulse, quick and steady and reliably _there_. “I know that too.”

 

And just like that, he is gone.

 

Rax groans, tired and complaining, when she comes back to their home, and sits her down to get her something warm to drink. “Why did you have to go and fall in love with a paladin of Voltron, of all things?”

 

Shay blinks, staring down at her cup where it is clasped between her hands, forcing the shaking out of them by demand of keeping it steady. “Is that what you’d call it?” She asks, and Rax snorts, giving her answer enough with that alone.

 

Hunk’s calls come and go in consistency following that, and though he does not return to the Balmera, he does check in at least every few days with dedication, even if it’s just for a few moments at the tail end of many days of battle. Perhaps he realizes how frightened she’d been for him during the silence after the confrontation with Zarkon, perhaps not, but either way she never has to wait too long for some kind of signal of his wellbeing anymore. The war rages on far away from her Balmera’s surface, and she gets used to counting the passage of the suns as the mark of time rather than marks on cave walls, and thinks back to the stories of old about the original war of Voltron, and how it waged for many years.

 

Sometimes she wonders if this one will be much the same. She hopes not.

 

Eventually, after what feels like far too many rotations of the suns, Shay gets a call she thinks everyone on the Balmera, once the news had spread, was waiting for, and one that Hunk, honestly, had probably been waiting for a long time to make with stubborn hope in his veins.

 

“I— We found Shiro. We did it. Shay, we _found him_.”

 

**5.**

After that, the tide of the war turns in Voltron’s favor once more, even as it grows to the strength and desperation of a hurricane on its last great gust of wind and rain before the fall.

 

With Voltron returned to its former glory, and Zarkon still vanished from the public eye, the peoples of the many planets he had ruled over begin to stir, clamoring at the sense of change. Lotor may be intelligent, he may be manipulative and strategic in battle, and Hunk has told Shay as much, but he is not his father. He is not the oppressor who has held the universe in his grip for ten thousand years through a monarchy of blood and terror.

 

To many who hated and feared, but cowered and obeyed, Zarkon was God. But Lotor is just a man— An intelligent and conniving man, but simply a man nonetheless.

 

If Zarkon, destroyer of Altea and conqueror of star systems, the creature that their legends say watched his own planet burn without remorse, can fall, then so too can is his son, no matter how cruel or clever he may prove himself to be.

 

And so Shay finds herself not as an observer of a small push back against the Empire, but as part of a quickly growing revolution.

 

Shay and her people fall into their role in the fighting, as part of the bigger picture, just fine in the end. Rebel forces crawl out of the woodwork and the far corners of the universe where they had hid from Zarkon time and time again, overwhelmed in the face of his power even with every minor victory and rescued prisoner, and as they pledge themselves to Voltron, amassing an army of ragtag ships and crews, the Balmera finds its place.

 

Every armada needs a supply ship, after all, and what better place than the first planet freed by Voltron, a hallmark of what this fight stands for, that is packed to the brim with energy crystals and a veritable well of ship engines and spare parts to be salvaged from the old Galra bases?

 

They become the rebellion’s center point for power and repair provisions, helping fighters scavenge what they needs from their amassed piles of abandoned Galra machines and tech, and sharing their Balmera’s crystals to those that need them _their_ way, the right way— A continuous cycle of take and return, in harmony, as it always was and should have been, before the Galra.

 

Shay’s brother runs off to join a crew of rebels, wanting to be a part of bringing the fight directly to Lotor, her parents assist in the work on their planet, and Shay finds herself as the emissary of her people, the members of the revolution somehow finding some authority in the scared child who had hoped for a moment to do something meaningful in her life, and had been the first to help the paladins of Voltron when no one else would.

 

No one ever questions her place as something like the director of rebel operations on the Balmera, the voice of her people, and so she tries not to either. She is young, but she is not any more so than the paladins, after all, and not so young that she cannot choose to fight.

 

She had made that choice the minute she helped Hunk for the first time, she just hadn’t realized it fully at the time.

 

With the way the fight against the Empire grows in volume and scale, taking up even more time and energy to conduct, Hunk does not find time to visit for long periods, outside of when the castle itself needs something from the Balmera— Which is, admittedly, rarer than Shay might wish in the deeper, more selfish parts of her heart. His absence is understandable, though, because this is war, and the two of them both have incredibly demanding, different duties to attend to.

 

As such, on every occasion when Hunk finds the time to call, Shay bites her tongue, and forces herself not to ask when he might next be around.

 

She trusts he will come back, and to ask for more than that in such a war as this is self-centered.

 

Over time, things begin to slow, the spaces between large battles that force temporary retreats, and send injured rebels rushing for the Castle of Lions or allied planets supplied with medical centers, growing longer. The end of the long fight to destroy the Empire tastes _real_ and _near_ properly for the first time, and Shay allows herself to hope for _more_ , yet one more time.

 

Hunk calls on one of the slow days, obvious to Shay in the easy, carefree movements of the rebels docked at the Balmera as they repair their ships and in the silence on the communication hubs tuned into the Voltron-aligned frequencies. “Things are quieting down.” He tells her, shifting sheepishly on the small screen in the way she’s come to recognize he does when he wants something but won’t speak it aloud. “Lotor’s apparently figuring out that he’s fighting a losing battle by now. Allura’s given us a day to just… catch our breath.”

 

Shay’s mouth quirks, wondering if it would be cruel to sit and make him say it, before deciding against it. She is not so calm and collected herself, either. “Well, if you have time, the screen on the communication device you built me has been acting up for a while now. Perhaps you could come and take a look at it.”

 

Hunk brightens up instantly, shoulders sagging in relief. “Yeah! Yeah— I mean… Yeah, I can do that. We’re not that far out from you, actually. Give me a couple hours and I’ll be... Yeah.”

 

Neither of them bother to point out that there are a dozen other similar communication hubs Shay could use if she wanted a better screen. That is not part of the nature of excuses, after all.

 

“Alright.” She tells him, and when he smiles, wide and bright, her world feels resettled once more.

 

It’s almost lonely to wait for Hunk’s arrival without Rax there to scoff over her shoulder and complain about the paladin’s many perceived shortcomings in her brother’s mind. She has still not gotten used to the silence of him being gone, and the worry of what might happen to both him and Hunk is a constantly pressing weight on her mind.

 

Sometimes, she wishes she had chosen to go with him, where she could keep an eye on her paranoid, grumbly little brother until the end of the days.

 

Most of the time, though, she is content with her choices. She is needed here, and she finds great value in being so needed.

 

When the rumble of Yellow’s thrusters reaches her ears, she looks up, chasing the glimmers of chrome and paint against the orange-lit sky. The sounds of its arrival deafens out any leftover noises of her planet’s operations, until there is only it, only this, the Balmera’s echo in her bones and the hum of the yellow lion’s engines wrapping around her like a second skin.

 

Hunk steps out, and then he is _there_ , arms wrapped around her middle and chin tucked against her shoulder and the rapid thump of his strange human heart clear and distinct against her chest. She laughs, burying her face in his hair and savoring the warmth his body emits that is so different from her own, yet still undeniably pleasant. “Hello, Hunk.”

 

“…Hi Shay.”

 

“It is nice to see you.” She murmurs, and she feels Hunk’s smile curve against the edge of her neck.

 

“It’s nice to see you too.”

 

**+1**

When the call goes out that Lotor has surrendered, heard crackling over the stations in the Balmera in a wave followed by cheering screams and sobbing collapses of well-won relief, Shay closes her eyes, and thanks whatever out there that might be listening that this is over at last.

 

There was an inevitability to the whole thing, really. An expectation of victory slowly crawling through the thoughts and hearts of rebels and freed peoples alike as the war clearly drew to a close, but it is still rocking to hear it. On some level, Shay thinks, they all of them had half-expected to go to sleep one night and wake up to find themselves back where they all started, in caves buried under mountains of rock or locked away in dank Galra prison cells, as their lives had taught them to expect. She certainly knows it was like that for her for a long time, at least. It still is, on some days when it all feels _not quite real_ , as if she asked for too much and it will all come crumbling down back on her.

 

But it _is_ real. She, the Balmeran child that was born meant to be just another number, had played her part in the war, and done it well, and now it is over.

 

They are free, all of them, once and for all.

 

Rax comes home first, barely a couple days after the news of Lotor’s surrender arrives, his crew docking up to drop off their Balmeran members and those that need to catch a ride on another ship back to their planet of choice. Shay races to the landing area in question once she sees the ship identification number come in on the scanners she helps monitor, heartbeat matching with every footfall as she desperately makes her way there. She sweeps him up in a crushing hug the minute she sees him, uncaring of the fact that he’s grown even bigger and taller than her yet _again_ in his time away, because at the end of the day he is still Shay’s baby brother, albeit not by much, and she is still stronger than him when she wants to be.

 

“Hello little brother.” She says to him, squeezing tighter even as he squirms and makes short, annoyed noises, and eventually he relents and sighs, slumping into her hold and hugging her back.

 

“…Hello big sister.”

 

Hunk shows up much later, after most of the rebels who would have reason to return to the Balmera for one purpose or another do so, but that is hardly unexpected. Voltron was the center of this battle, after all. The pinnacle of hope and morality they all looked to, _still_ look to. Allura would want her paladins, her faithful compatriots there for her from the beginning of this fight, with her as she set about negotiating the exact terms of Lotor’s surrender, what to do with the thousands of Galra soldiers and civilians that have lived under the Empire’s rule just as much as any of the rest of them for years upon years.

 

The war may be won, but the work is far from over, and Shay knows this as she sets aside her silent communication hub with its well-repaired screen from Hunk’s last visit, and focuses on the tasks at hand. Hunk will be back when what he is needed for is done, this she trusts in, and so for now she must focus on what duties she herself is required for. There will be time for quiet celebrations and talks with the one person who unwittingly brought her into this fight, and in doing so saved her life, when things are settled.

 

Eventually, after weeks of quiet, Shay gets a single alert of an incoming craft unlike any other coming and going yet still from her planet— A lion of Voltron.

 

Rax walks with her to where she knows Hunk and his lion will land, leaning his elbows on her shoulders and nearly sending her tipping over before they right themselves, both of them still equally adjusting to his last growth spurt. They watch the sky in quiet, Rax looking generally unimpressed but managing to stave off his complaints for the moment, more than aware how much this, how much _Hunk_ , means to Shay. He may not necessarily agree with it—or he may and just not want to admit it, after his attitude towards Hunk on their first meeting—but she is his sister, and he loves her, so he holds his tongue, at least for a little while.

 

When the roar of the engines becomes hearable, and the first glimmers of the yellow lion can be spotted on the horizon, Rax makes a complaining, grumbling noise, just once. “He could have at least called ahead.”

 

Shay smiles, tipping her head back to lean against her brother’s shoulder even as he slumps more of his weight over her like an overly protective yupper, the balance of things finally somewhat figured out. “I think he wanted it to be a surprise.”

 

“Which is stupid, surely he knew we’d notice his arrival and—“

 

“Just let me have this, Rax.”

 

“…Fine.”

 

Her brother leaves just before the yellow lion lands, casting one last half-hearted glare Shay know holds no real animosity at it and then wandering off, muttering something under his breath about having better things to do than third-wheel or chaperone them. She watches him disappear into one of the Balmera’s many tunnels with a small smile, and then turns back, heart in her throat, just as Hunk steps off his lion, drinking in the picture of him. She has seen him on the screens of the Balmera’s communication hubs, heard his voice over the rebel call stations, but it is still nothing quite like him being there in person. It has been too long. Then again, it _always_ feels too long, when it comes to Hunk and his absence.

 

He’s changed, even taller and bigger than before, his hair longer and now pulled back completely by the tatty orange ribbon he always had, but underneath he still has the same wide eyes and hopeful expression of the newly recruited soldier who crashed onto her planet before all this even began.

 

She wonders if she looks different to him, as well, or if he can still catch the glimpses of the child who had never tasted the sun that he had first met.

 

Hunk hesitates, only for a moment, fingers twisting together and looking unsure. She nods and smiles, and he is at her side in an instant, arms around her waist and swinging her up and around with such force her feet leave the ground, prompting a surprised, but not unhappy, giggle from her. After a long moment of stumbling and joyful confusion, he sets her down, arms still looped around her, and she mirrors his position, grinning up at his frazzled, delighted expression.

 

“We won.” He says, tripping over his words just barely and squeezing her ever so slightly. “We _won_.”

 

“I heard.” She laughs. “I knew you could do it.”

 

Hunk shakes his head. “ _We_ did it. All of us.”

 

“Yes.” She says quietly. “I suppose we did.”

 

Shay walks him back to her home slowly through the scattered rebel camps and ship repair stations that have sprung up in and around the old, abandoned Galra bases, building something good out of what was once a mark of control over them all, giving Hunk a chance to take it all in properly for the first time. The few times he’s really been around since the Balmera began to become something like the rebellion’s power supplier were always so brief and short, work over socialization, and Shay takes the opportunity to actually _show_ him what her people, what _she,_ has achieved, what they all have contributed to the fight.

 

There’s something like pride that settles under her skin as Hunk looks around with wide eyes, genuinely seeming amazed, or at least faking it very well as he makes the appropriate noises of surprise. Either way, she takes it for what it is, and chooses to enjoy her moment.

 

“It’s all pretty different.” He admits to her, hand intertwined with her own as he watches her people and the varied rebels move around with purpose, and she beams.

 

“I like it.” She says. “It’s… It’s a change we got to _choose_ , not one forced upon us. It is our planet again, not the Galra’s.”

 

Hunk hums in quiet agreement, his eyes tracking a group of newly landed rebels as they unload their ship. “What happens to them all now, do you think?”

 

“I doubt anyone is sure.” Shay says softly. “We’ve all of us spent our entire lives under Zarkon’s thumb, and then dedicated almost entirely to this war against him. I rather think many of us are… lost, as what to do next.”

 

“Do you feel that way?”

 

She blinks, considering. “…I do not know. I suppose it does not all quite feel fully real yet, much the same as it was when my planet was first freed.”

 

Hunk snorts. “I feel that.” He pauses, and she waits, looking to him until he shrugs and continues. “It almost felt too… too _easy_ , you know? After all that time fighting, convinced for a long while there we might just die out there, Lotor waved the white flag, and just like that it was… over. I sat there through all those negotiations, all those decisions about what to do with whom, and I still kept expecting to close my eyes and find myself back out there in battle at a moment’s notice.” Shay watches him, and he blinks rapidly, shaking his head and glancing down at her, offering her an unsure smile. “There’s still a lot to do, and Voltron will probably still be needed here and there, even if only as a figurehead or to deal with straggler Galra commanders who don’t get the memo. But… For the most part, the fighting’s over, and I know that. I just… don’t think it’s quite sunk in yet.”

 

She nods, a silent acknowledgement of understanding, and squeezes the hand holding her own, glancing back out to the moving figures on her planet’s surface. “And what will _you_ do now, then?”

 

Hunk laughs, quiet but genuine, and she grins, tugging him back along the path as they resume walking once more. “No idea. For the longest time all we did was talk about going home, resuming our old lives, but after all this... I don’t know. It’s different. I don’t think I could go back to the way I was, after seeing so much and being out here so long.” He pauses, clearly thinking. “I went back and saw my family after the negotiations started to wrap up. I hadn’t been home at _all_ since becoming a paladin, and seeing my family again was… _so much,_ everything I ever wanted since I left. But it was so quiet, and I couldn’t seem to sit still long enough no matter how hard I tried.” Hunk sighs. “My family still thinks I’m just coming and going until things get sorted properly with the Galra surrender and then I’ll be home for good, but I don’t know if I’ll actually ever be able to be the person they remember again.”

 

Shay frowns slightly, trying to imagine going back to who she was before the war, before sunlight and freedom and so much _purpose_. Even if it was for her family, she does not think she could do it, could not give all that up again. “If they love you, they will understand.”

 

“Hopefully.” Hunk’s mouth quirks upward, and he shrugs. “Got to admit though, even after everything I’ve seen, everything I _could_ see, I don’t think there’ll ever be anything quite like home.”

 

That, at least, is a sentiment Shay can fully understand. While even after all this, she still has never left her home planet—and the Balmera help her, isn’t that something to think about, now that it’s all over, actually _leaving_ —but she knows without doubt there will never be any place quite like here in her heart.

 

Curiosity drives people forward, pushing them to explore and discover new things and new peoples, but it is familiarity, the sense of warmth and comfort that cannot be found quite the same anywhere else, that brings them home.

 

Shay is both— She is the curiosity born of years of wonder and hope about a life on the surface, and she is the beating heart of the Balmera, strong and steady as she helps her home to grow. It is this _wanting_ , over things she should not have, that allowed her to rebel, and that even now makes Hunk so fascinating to her, but it is her love for her home and her people that makes her who she is.

 

Sometimes, she wonders which will win out, the desire to chase the stars and see it all, or the well-met duty of being there for her planet. If there is any way she can have both.

 

Instead, she says, “Tell me about it. Your planet.”

 

Hunk smiles wide and bright, and he does. He tells her of the varied cultures and climates of the Earth, of all the worlds to discover just on the one planet alone, hidden away on walks of land both big and small separated by oceans of water. He tells her of his home, a small house at the end of a cracked road where an old dog with golden fur sleeps, and of his family, being small and odd-edged but undeniably _good_ at its core.

 

He tells her of it all, every piece of _his_ Earth, as they walk amongst the rebuilt hope, found in reclaimed bases and growing crystals, of Shay’s home, glorious in its possibilities, in all its potential futures.

 

“…I wish you could see it.” Hunk finishes softly, once the well-remembered descriptions and tales of his planet have run out. “I’d love to show you one day.”

 

Shay pauses in her steps, thinking of the many definitions of home and the future and all the things to see, of the always-startling warmth of Hunk’s hand in her own, and of _possibilities_. There is still so much work to do, in this new universe they are all building from the ashes and from their closely cradled dreams of once believed impossibilities, but there is also so much to discover, simply for the sake of discovery itself, out there too. “And I would love to be shown it.”

 

Hunk lights up, looking pleased and hopeful and all the things he did the very first time they met, and he told her of Voltron and what it meant to accomplish, and Shay wonders if there is more of who they once were left over than they thought. Or perhaps it is simply that they were more who they are now than they previously gave themselves credit for.

 

A noise comes from not far in front of them, and Shay realizes that they’ve somehow managed to walk all the way to her home, too caught up in her thoughts and Hunk’s general presence to notice. Hunk looks to it, glancing at her and shuffling his feet in a clearly hesitant gesture, before the loud bang of something being slammed down echoes from inside, and then Rax is sticking his head out the door and glaring at the both of them as he yells. “Well, come inside then!”

 

Hunk startles, half jumping behind Shay, and she giggles as Rax casts Hunk one last sour look and disappears back inside. “Don’t worry, he doesn’t actually mind you.”

 

“…You sure about that?” Hunk coughs, casting one last suspicious glance at the now vacant opening to Shay’s home, and she grins despite herself, wondering if this is what peace, for her Balmera and for all the universe, truly feels like.

 

(If it is, she thinks she can take it. This can be enough.)

 

“I’m sure.”

 

Hunk sighs in relief, turning to face her properly, and on impulse she grabs his other hand, pressing their palms together and interlocking their fingers, counting the beat of his pulse beneath them. He flushes, looking down at their joined hands as if he hadn’t quite registered they’d been there the whole time, and Shay smiles, soft and fond.

 

There is still so much to talk about, to discover about each other and about the universe, and there is still work to be done. The cycle of growth and change has not ended, not in the slightest, nor should it— The Balmera will continue to evolve, and so must the universe, and them. But for now, they may take a moment, and rest in the shade of the good they have planted as they figure out what to do with themselves next.

 

Whatever it is, Shay thinks she will be happy, so long as they decide it together.

 

“Stay for a while?” Shay asks, counting the new, thin scars on Hunk’s face, the starts of laughter lines around his eyes, and Hunk grins, so much what he was when they first met, and yet more.

 

“Yeah, I think I can manage that one.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: [pastel-clark](http://pastel-clark.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Twitter: [hpClarkster](https://twitter.com/hpClarkster)


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